I got an even better deal. Here in Cincy, Duke Energy will send you a box of about a dozen free CFL’s just for asking. In fact, they sent me a second box when I moved, and then sent a box to the guy who just moved out, so I’m awash in free light bulbs.
Call your power company - they may have a deal for you.
Because I know the whole process is a failed bad idea and just representative of my personal mania? I know it’s not very rational, but I hate changing bulbs
Consider the Cree lamps: http://creebulb.com/products/standard-a-type/100-watt-replacement-soft-white-led-bulb, they claim compatibility, and since they are one of the bigger chip manufacturers on the planet, their color consistency between lamps is pretty good due to their tight binning. Just make sure you adjust the low end of the dimmer and you should be moderately happy.
Please note: Steampunk Banana is an independent lighting design consultant and thus does not own or associate in any way with any manufacturers. He/she is also not responsible for any disappointment as a result of the cold, dead, colorless light resulting from dimmed LED products.
I’m also in Cincy. Duke is sending out catalogs for subsidized LED and CFL. Cree’s are $3. Some brands are cheaper. There are even LED lights for chandeliers (those bulbs with the smaller screw base). $2 or so.
Before Duke, I’ve been trying out LED lights bought from Aliexpress. Gotta be really careful buying on there. But I’ve had good luck. And at $1 or $2 each, a worthwhile experiment.
But $3 Cree bulbs? We have a new winner!
If you’re crazy enough to try them, there are some weird Chinese 100W equivalent bulbs for about $2. Heck, you can get 50W LED (300W equivalent) for like $15. Seems a recipe or disaster. And if that’s not enough, there are 300W LED floods! Probably bigger stuff lurks on the internet.
I think that there are quite a few off grid solar folks that have low voltage DC circuits throughout their home. With the new USB standards, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some new houses that have DC USB outlets – I seem to recall that the problem is that one needs a lot more expensive copper to avoid voltage drops…
I also recall articles about commercial buildings switching to low voltage LED lighting that used a centralized DC supply (some even allowed retrofits using the metal ceiling grid for distribution 
).
Here is some ebay collection.
You can assemble your own array from LEDs of choice. There are even some that combine 6 different wavelength sources on one die array, which may help with the color rendering a bit. Though I’d rather suggest to go discrete, and make your own mix. And individually control the channels, so you can adjust the light parameters as you please; high-frequency PWM is a friend, adjustable current sources as well.
I can easily see a ESP8266-based lamp with four channels of PWM (RGBW is a common combination, you can even find RGBW LEDs), with a simple keypad or so for hand-on-switch operation and a wifi API for home-automation control (voice commands, gestures, automatic mood recognition, time scripting… anything you please. Just expose the “set RGBW” command to the LAN either directly or via some pub/sub interface and the rest is bash or python or php or c or whatever you can do best.
With the WS2812 LEDs you can even have long strips of individually adjustable, albeit individually not so powerful, RGB LEDs. They have four wires - power, ground, data in, data out. They can be chained, addressed via one wire, and there are code libraries for their control for virtually anything from Arduino to NodeMCU. Just call the API with an array of RGB values.
Same deal in metro Detroit with DTE. I got a box of CFLs that I’ve mostly not used yet since I got them 4 years ago. I refuse to replace working bulbs. I’ll replace the incandescent bulbs when they die.
You’re welcome, Jason, from those of us who have been purchasing some of those more expensive LED bulbs knowing that by doing so, we will help to bring the price down.
Nah, halogens pop with annoying regularity no matter what you do with them in my experience.
I am veeeeeerrry interested in full-spectrum 300W equivalent LEDs for dirt cheap, because reasons. Linky plz?
I’d like to inquire as to what dimmer you are using then. Standard incandescent dimmers literally just dial down the voltage, it’s as dumb and as smooth as they can make it. CFL and LED both require an initial spike of voltage to strike the arc, which cannot be held as one dims down. They typically don’t make it past 5% and never below 1% because, physics.
As for “full spectrum” LED, those do not exist. But, if you’re trying to grow things or something like that, you shouldn’t be concerned about the red end of things as much as the blue/UV. But the phosphor mix in all white LED has a dip in the greens and in the reds, you’re never getting anything in the high 90 CRI,* let alone for cheap.
*That CRI is a terrible metric for LED is irrelevant, but it’s the only thing we got. But honestly, you can’t trust these numbers either.
If it’s for seasonal affective issues, go metal halide.
I should also try high-pressure sodium. The brilliant white of MH works apparently fairly well for SAD but the HPS lamps have a beautiful golden light.
Edit: Also, if LEDs are a must, I’d suggest to source separately the LEDs and the power supply. Way more choice that way, and the wiring is easy. And it may be as easy, if you make a large enough array of LEDs, as a diode bridge and capacitor and directly feeding the LEDs from the mains, perhaps with some small ballast resistor or some simple transistor based constant current supply. (Which will waste some energy but that’s the price of simplicity. You can also go for a current-source buck converter but that’s more difficult.)
It’s also much easier to regulate current (or PWM-chop it) on the output side than on the input. The control can be done either by rewiring the light, or by adding a microcontroller with a suitable interface (ESP8266?) to the light.
Oh, no dimmers, they’re just in the damn lamp. Bloody things pop for no reason.
Check your voltage then, depending on the distance from your circuit panel you might be over 120 (or whatever your local is).
The Amazon page for this brand also had some 5000K daylight bulbs from the same manufacturer, at a slightly higher price. Still only 60w, though.
Or it may be a dynamic situation, dirty power - spikes or intermittent sags or harmonics. A fun thing to do could be taking a small transformer followed with a resistor divider, and feeding its output to a sound card. Then recording for some time. Then looking at the waveforms.
Maybe the real question here is, do plants get depressed?
Certainly, when you forget to water them.
…but as of light you don’t need full-spectrum light for them - special growing LEDs with a few blue and mostly red chips are made for plants. No need to feed them with the wavelengths they’d reflect away anyway. So I guessed this is not that application. 
